Scientists urge Africa to fund disease research

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Cash-strapped African states should spend more money on research and training to tackle diseases like AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, international scientists said on Thursday.

“I don’t think enough money has gone into tuberculosis and malaria and other tropical diseases… Therefore you need major public commitments,” said Wilmot James, an interim director of the South Africa-based Africa Genome Education Institute (AGEI).

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says less than 1 percent of total public and private funds spent on health research in recent years has been devoted to pneumonia, diarrhoea, tuberculosis and malaria, which account for more than 20 percent of the world’s disease burden.

Similarly, just $300 million was directed to vaccines for HIV/AIDS and $100 million for malaria research, out of $70 billion spent globally on health research in 1998, according to the WHO.

“Governments, foundations and private companies can invest more in the training and development at university level of students in modern biology,” AGEI said in statement released at a meeting of researchers in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Many African governments say they have no spare money for research, already struggling to provide basic services like health, education and security on the only continent where living standards have declined in the past two decades. 

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